[jakehop]

As a Dane, I am slightly offended by the dishonesty of our politicians, especially concerning our energy policy, which makes no sense.

Yes, this is a big deal, but only because of the publicity value of the decision, as the environmental impact will be negligible. But this is the root of the problem: Denmark's energy policy is almost solely about publicity!

Since the end of the 1970s, our neighbours in Sweden have consistently followed an energy policy, that deliver cheap[0] and stable energy from hydro- and nuclear power, while emitting much less CO2 than us. Check at any time of day, and I can assure you that the emmissions from our electricity consumption will be higher than in Sweden[1].

While Denmark has almost phased out coal power, we've replaced it with "biofuel"; imported wood from Brazil, Estonia and the US. This is especially neat, as a technicality in the IPCC emmissions ratings views wood as a sustainable fuel, as the forest can be replanted and the emmissions will be stored in the wood until this is cut down and burned anew.

Our strategy was described as "accounting fraud" by IPCC scientist William Moomaw and "climate fraud" by Daniel Kammen, professor at Berkeley and a former IPCC lead author and Obama advisor. Denmark's seemingly incredible track record has even fooled our population: 78% of Danes believe that our primary source of renewable energy was windpower, when this was actually just 22% of all renewable electricity generation (biomass being 68%), which accounts for 35% of total electricity consumption [2].

This is problematic to say the least: Not only are our energy prices among the highest in the world - how does 40 cents pr. kWh sound? - we aren't making any real difference. The Danish strategy has always been sold as "a job creator" and "an export adventure", but isn't that just the same type of corporate greed, now in sheeps clothing?

Danish wind turbine manufacturer, Vestas, was the primary recepient of billions of dollars in state aid, tax excemptions, etc., but every downturn resulted in layoffs, which always struck Denmark first.'

As CO2-levels have risen to a record level, we Danes keep on burning wood, straw and trash, while calling ourselves a "green leader", while our strategy has also left us wholly dependent on electricity imports from Germany, Norway and Sweden.

The inability to act sensibly is depressing and I hate how the entire issue of climate is being politized in such a way, that a civil discussion is close impossible, while lobbyists are having a field day.

So please spare me the praise of Denmark's policies. If nothing else, our deceptions are making things worse.

[0] Electricity prices in Copenhagen are ~ 50% higher in Denmark, than in Sweden. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... [1] https://www.electricitymap.org/map [2] https://nyheder.tv2.dk/samfund/2019-09-06-danmarks-klimaregn... (Google Translate should be able to translate most of the article pretty accurately)

[japanuspus]

Also worth pointing out is that one of the key reasons for keeping all those "green" biomass power stations running is that they supply heating for most urban areas via "communal heating". This heat is tax-free since the heat is a "waste product", keeping the single biggest energy use sector at an artificially low price (energy use for heating is bigger than transport and consumer electricity).

It would be political suicide to start taxing the energy for heating, leading to all kinds of weirdness such as:

- Denmark _paying_ to export electricity when the power stations need to run to produce heat (because if the power plants used the electricity to provide heating, the heat would not be a waste product)!

- Big data centers cannot sell waste heat for heating, because they would need to run heat engines to raise the temperature to usable levels, again rendering the heat "not a waste product".

(TBH, The last one is so clearly stupid that a workaround in the rules is in the books)

[jakehop]

The Danish legislation is setup in such a way, that all electricity consumers pay a tariff to cover the guaranteed electricity prices to owners of wind farms.

Still, Denmark often sold electricity for pennies on the dollar – or literally for free – to Norway, who in turn used the energy to pump more water into their hydroelectric dams. This energy was then sold back to us, at (higher) market rates, whenever the wind died down and Denmarks needed to import electricity, due to its inability to produce enough electricity to cover its own demand.

Often, when Scandinavia is getting a lot of wind, you can even see electricity prices going below zero. In some of those cases, you can sometimes see a group of wind turbines, where some are spinning at great speeds and other are completely still. This is in order for the producers not wanting to pay to get rid of their electricity.

While it is a shame that the storage problem isn't solved yet (except in the case of our shrewd Norwegian neighbours), I don't really fancy waiting for that to happen, when other options are (or rather should be) on the table.

[tomp]

Ha! When I read the headline, I immediately had two thoughts: first one "yeah they'll just import it from elsewhere" and then "well maybe I shouldn't be such a knee-jerk pessimist".

Turns out I was probably not pessimistic enough (i.e. my first though was generic skepticism about "climate promises" by someone with no history of "climate fraud", but if what you say is true, my "skepticism" is actually more like "business as usual").

[jeltz]

A good thing though is that at least for electricity a lot of Danish coal was replaced by Swedish nuclear and Norwegian hydro, but also some German coal. Do despite being dishonest it is actually also greener in practice.

[robocat]

> Not only are our energy prices among the highest in the world - how does 40 cents pr. kWh sound?

That sounds like a great way to reduce carbon footprint. All renewable power is used, so every extra (marginal) kWh used comes 100% from CO² producing generation. A price high enough to affect consumer's usage will reduce the carbon footprint.

[jakehop]

>> Not only are our energy prices among the highest in the world - how does 40 cents pr. kWh sound?

> That sounds like a great way to reduce carbon footprint. All renewable power is used, so every extra (marginal) kWh used comes 100% from CO² producing generation. A price high enough to affect consumer's usage will reduce the carbon footprint.

I disagree; itis a rather backwards view and a misunderstanding of how cheap and plentiful energy has made the human experience less harsh and more meaningful for billions of people.

In Denmark it means that many Danish homes are being heated with wood stoves, wood pellet boilers, natural gas or even old oil furnaces. Neither of these have any meaningful filtering and emit CO2, whereas cheaper electricity would make heat pumps and other electric heating much more meaningful.

Remember: Cheap energy is not the problem, unless the low price point is due to political legislating, not requiring the producer to pay the entire "bill", e.g. by not compensating for emitting CO2.

Vestas and other wind turbine producers have done some clever lobbying by getting legislators to buy their "cheap" power, while leaving the issue of baseline stability to somebody else.

[throwaway201103]

Without question burning wood and similar biomass is better than burning coal. It has the issue of particulate pollution, but modern filtering technology on that is pretty good. It also has the risk of demand outpacing the rate at which new biomass can grow, but I don't know if we're anywhere close to that.

[Loic]

Not if you import your wood and biomass out of South America or Asia from "officially well maintained" forests. Cut the trees in your country and suddenly you can see how well maintained are the forest delivering enough wood to run combined heat/power plants.

You need a staggering amount of wood and if you want to produce them in a really sustainable way, you simply cannot. You would be able to produce such amount of wood nicely in a sustainable way, you would sell it for furniture or construction wood for way more money.

The only heat from wood I know are really well (not only on the paper) managed are the ones directly working with a network of sawmill to reuse the waste and usually, they are small.

[jakehop]

Better how? Scientists and professors with decades of experience in this exact field, disagree[0].

Burning wood even discharges more CO2 in the atmosphere, than coal[1] and we haven't even started to talk about where all those trees must be grown to keep up with the demand of an energy policy based on solar/wind + biofuel backup, like we are planning in Denmark.

It is not a terribly good idea and it is infuriating how little science and facts matter to a political discusssion that one would think was based around those elements.

[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/03/opinion/pruitt-forests-bu... [1] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aaa512/...

[johanvts]

It's painfullly ironic that this situation was forced on Denmark by the anti-nuclear grass roots movement of the seventies. The tree-huggers destroyed the climate with their concern for the environment.